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out.
    'Annabel...?' Geoffrey still looked puzzled. 'What was that all about? Am I missing something?'
    'I was angry with him for eavesdropping,' she said defensively.
    'Eavesdropping?' Geoffrey's spectacles had slipped down his nose and he pushed them up with his forefinger. 'But I don't think he was. He was only asking about what he must have heard me saying when he opened the door.'
    'He had no right to ask about it.'
    'But he's head of staff now. It makes sense he might be curious about us.'
    'He has no right to be,' she said.
    'I think he got the message.' Geoffrey blinked at her again. 'In fact, the poor man probably didn't know what hit him. You spoke right over him. You seemed to be determined to go out of your way to make him look foolish.'
    That was too much. 'And did he?'
    He looked blank. 'What?'
    'Look foolish?'
    'Well, not really,' Geoffrey conceded. 'In fact, I thought he handled it rather well, considering—'
    'How rude I was,' Annabel finished. 'Yes, I know.' She sighed. Despite her colleague's worry on behalf of Luke, she had the advantage of knowing that Luke had never in his entire charmed life ever looked, or been made to look, foolish. 'I'm sorry,' she said quietly. 'Please, forget that. He rubs me the wrong way.' She made clumsily for the door. 'Fingernails on a blackboard stuff. I have to get back to work.'
    Hannah was both senior enough and skilled enough to be able to see and assess patients and arrange investigations and treatment independently, in line with what she knew to be Annabel's own preferences, but when she wanted advice she always asked and at the end of each clinic they held a short session where they discussed the cases she'd seen.
    This time, since Annabel had spent longer at morning tea than she'd intended and, despite Luke's earlier help, her clinic ran over time. As soon as she'd finished going over Hannah's case load she had to run to make it to the postgraduate seminar room in time to start her lecture.
    The talk was a regular weekly session and was generally well attended by the hospital's medical, nursing and general staff, as well as medical students visiting St Peter's from the Free. The consultants tended to take it in turns with outside experts to deliver the lectures, which were carefully tailored to be of interest to all health professionals, rather than being aimed strictly at doctors.
    Harry normally acted as the master of proceedings but when Annabel rushed into the hall it wasn't Harry's reassuring face she saw, waiting for her down the front, ready to introduce her, but Luke's distinctly unreassuring one.
    'I see six years haven't been long enough for you to learn the simple courtesy of punctuality,' he murmured.
    Annabel, despite conceding that she had once had a problem with getting anywhere on time, now considered herself an extremely punctual person, and she found his observation offensive. She drew herself up stiffly, determined not to let him guess her reaction. 'What have you done with Harry?'
    'I haven't eaten him, if that's what you're worried about,' he said neutrally. 'Does this speech of yours have a title?'
    'Current thinking on the role of infection in cardiac disease,' she said jerkily. 'Shouldn't you have read the title, before usurping poor Harry?'
    'Just keep it short.' He sent her an impatient look on his way to the lectern. 'And to the point, if that's at all possible.'
    As soon as he'd said that, Annabel began steeling herself for a terse introduction, and as he turned on the microphone and moved to speak she caught her breath, wondering what she was in for.
    'Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this afternoon's Dean's lecture, where you'll hear about current thinking in the role of infection in heart disease.' He spent a few moments introducing himself and explaining his new role as head of medicine, and then he turned slightly towards her. 'I have the pleasure today of introducing St Peter's youngest, yet also one of its most distinguished, widely